


He I Say, I Cannot Say I

by closetcellist



Series: Lil' Bit of Lovecraft [7]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Typical Desert Bluffs Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 13:14:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1689617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/closetcellist/pseuds/closetcellist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Javier experiences a bit of an existential crisis, while Kevin is stricken with immaturity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He I Say, I Cannot Say I

**Author's Note:**

> After taking down Strex Corp, Javier learns that he is a clone of Carlos, created to help control Kevin. Kevin meanwhile is enjoying being an elder god a little too much and starts to neglect his town and his boyfriend.

It started at Kevin’s house, when Javier was over, enjoying the moments of relative peace at the end of the day. This was when they shared things, random thoughts that flitted through their heads that wanted out the way Kevin’s true form whispered at the edges of reality. “I think I might run for mayor,” Javier said, offhandedly, almost sleepily. He expected a hum of acknowledgment, or perhaps an excited exclamation of how Kevin would help him out. The town was a mess, after all—they’d taken out Strex and put nothing in its place and most of the citizens were too docile or too feral to organize themselves properly on their own. The city had been slowly falling apart for weeks.

Instead of what he expected, Kevin laughed, a touch derisively. “Why?” he asked, incredulity coloring the question a shade Javier didn’t appreciate. “That’s kind of ridiculous.”

Javier frowned, sitting up fully, retracting his body heat and calm touch from Kevin. “What’s ridiculous about it?” he asked sternly. “I know how Strex ran the place, and I know what they did right and what they did wrong. No one else is going to do it, so why shouldn’t I?”  
  
“We don’t need a mayor,” Kevin said, smiling as if he couldn’t see that Javier was upset. “I’m in charge—I’m the whole town! Why would we need anything else?”

Javier narrowed his eyes. “You might be in power but you’re not in control,” he said, taking this much more seriously than Kevin seemed able. “You aren’t going to impose any order, and the town is falling apart. I can’t live in your mess.” It came out harsher than he intended, but Kevin didn’t seem fazed, and that pissed him off even more. But, he tried to tell himself, he just doesn’t understand. He’s a multidimensional eldritch deity and you’re… but that was where he had to stop, because if he thought too hard about it, about Kevin’s powers and his complete lack of defining history which so composed the self and what they were going to do once he was healed and how much (or how little) he was really going to lose even as he gained… _something,_ he felt shaky and angry and too unprepared. “Nevermind,” he muttered, sinking irritably back into Kevin’s embrace.

Kevin tried to cuddle him better, but nothing was resolved and Javier’s doubts continued to simmer.  


***

Days later, Kevin barged into his lab uninvited. This wasn’t unusual, and generally wasn’t a problem. But Javier had been feeling at loose ends and touchy and to solve this he’d started a new round of experiments that he felt he needed to finish today; it would give him the calm sense of completion and accomplishment he so desperately needed, from his own hands (and eyes and brain).

But Kevin, interesting Kevin, amazing Kevin, utterly and completely spoiled and immature Kevin, didn’t want to wait. “Javier, let’s go _do_ something,” he drawled. “I love your science but can you do it later?” Javier was trying to concentrate, and Kevin just wasn’t feeling that. “Come on, Javier let me help! Or let’s do something fun! We can hunt down a poisonous flying blizard together!”

Javier sighed. “Look, Kev, all of that sounds great, but right now, I need to focus on this, okay? I’d let you help if there was something for you to do, but this time there isn’t. Just…give me a couple hours and we’ll do something then.”  
  
“But I want to do something now!” he said, not quite whining, but so very, very close.

Javier pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, Kev,” he said firmly. “This is important to me, and I would prefer to do it now. I promise, we’ll have dinner together later.”

“But Javier,” it was definitely a whine now.

“Kevin!” Javier snapped. “I said, no! God, will you just _listen_ , please?”

Kevin’s expression slid into a scowl. “I don’t see why you have to yell at me,” he said tightly. “I just wanted to do something with you.”  
  
Javier let out a frustrated sigh. “I’m sorry I yelled, but I need you to respect what I’m saying when I tell you something’s important to me. I need you to actually listen to the words coming out of my mouth and accept them.”

But Kevin was still feeling antsy. “Is this about your dumb mayor idea?” he asked, pouting.

“Get out of my lab, Kevin,” Javier said, coldly. He felt his expression hardening into a blank mask so he could keep his anger from doing the momentary but irreparable damage he wished to inflict.

“Why?” Kevin complained. “It’s just a really silly idea! It’s a total waste of your valuable time! Time you could be spending with me!”

Javier turned away and started grabbing things, and throwing them into his bag. His notebook, the files he’d pilfered from the ruins of Strex headquarters, and a small cylindrical device he had to scramble for at the back of a drawer full of half-finished mechanical discards. “Then you stay here, and I’ll leave,” he ground out, ignoring Kevin, as he stormed out.

Kevin got to the door just as it slammed, pushing through it just before Javier rounded a corner. “Where are you going?” he wailed, finally concerned about the situation.

“I need to be alone for a while,” Javier tossed back, angrily, and as he turned the corner and left Kevin’s line of physical sight, he reached into his bag and pushed a button on the top of the device he’d thrown there. Then he broke into a run.

Kevin kicked a small piece of debris. “Fine,” he mumbled to himself, getting ready to settle in for a long and deep sulk. “It’s not like I won’t know where you…went…” he trailed off, eyes widening, as he realized he couldn’t feel Javier anymore, couldn’t see him on this plane or any other; he simply wasn’t on Kevin’s map. And Kevin panicked. “Javier?!” he asked in a shout that shot up in pitch as his concern rose by the second. He stumbled off the step, flailing his arms to keep his balance and he scrambled to the corner. Javier was nowhere to be seen. “Javier?” he whispered, leaning against the building, empty eyes scanning the street rapidly and each time returning the information that his scientist was gone. “Where did you go?”

***

Javier walked more slowly after he’d gotten a block or two away. Later he’d feel guilty about pulling that on Kevin, but for now he was glad it had worked. One of the thing Douglas’ team had been working on before they’d been killed was the device Javier had taken—essentially a cloaking device, that worked only against Kevin. It emitted sound waves at a frequency that neither humans nor Kevin could hear, but which matched the vibrations of Desert Bluffs closely enough that Kevin couldn’t distinguish the sound bubble from empty land. They’d only finished the one prototype and Javier, while he trusted and loved Kevin, most of the time, had kept it, just in case.

He needed to be alone—really alone, knowing that Kevin couldn’t barge in at any second. Most of the time it was comforting, sweet really, that Kevin knew where everything in the town was, and that he wanted to be by Javier’s side. But after they’d destroyed Strex, there was very little time Kevin _didn’t_ spend by his side, and after he’d learned he was really just a clone, that presence, while initially comforting, had become a bit stifling, as he felt himself losing the last few pieces of his own identity he had left. He didn’t mind so much that he had been created with a purpose—so few people in the world could say that for sure—but he did mind that there seemed, these days, to be nothing _except_ keeping Kevin happy. And he needed to be _himself_ , not just a tool or a toy.

He didn’t think that was what Kevin wanted either, not since that Valentine’s Day. But over the last few weeks he’d been…horrible, really, if Javier admitted it. Utterly dismissive of Javier’s ideas. It didn’t feel malicious and manipulative, but it did feel terribly childish, and Javier wasn’t sure he wanted to be the caretaker of an impossibly ancient twelve-year-old either.

So he needed a little time apart, to figure out what to do, and how to explain this to Kevin, if he’d listen. If he wouldn’t…Well, that sacrifice had to be given voluntarily and if he wasn’t going to listen to Javier, he wasn’t going to be getting _anything_ from him any time soon.

He set himself up in the office of an abandoned shop. _So many places were abandoned these days_ , Javier thought sadly. _I hope there’s still time to fix it_. With peace and quiet, Javier turned his focus back to trying to come up with some sort of workable plan for the town.

Hours later, though he relished the space and peace, the lonely emptiness of the abandoned building began to weigh on him, to the point where it was too loud in its silence. He fished around in his bag for his portable radio and switched it on. _You can’t do anything without him,_ his mind whispered snidely, but he ignored it.

A prerecorded segment—an old one, a Strex commercial—was playing, but when Kevin came back on there was a decidedly shaky quality to both his voice and his reporting.

“And now, traffic,” Kevin said, listlessly. “There are no cars, because none of you drive anymore. Where would you drive to? You have no jobs. You huddle in your homes; do you have homes? Do you have a family? Do you exist? Or are you simply a figment of my imagination, now worn too thin and transparent? I can feel you. We had a connection, once—your ear, my mouth. We had each other. But connections can be broken as easily as bones, and some of them may never have existed at all. How can we know? How can we be sure what is real and who is real? How can we go back—“

Javier turned off the radio with a sharp twist. _Now_ he felt the beginnings of guilt, but not enough for him to turn the device off yet. He tried to work a little longer on his plans, but it was useless. Instead, he packed up and walked to the radio station, where he waited in the parking lot for Kevin to finish his broadcast.

***

Kevin had hoped talking to the town would make him feel better—reestablish whatever connection had been messed up between Javier and himself, or just talk through his problems to his hundreds of willing listeners. But there was so little to report. Vanessa wasn’t even there to give him updates. There didn’t seem to be many updates. He knew where she was— _her,_ he could feel. But why was she at home? Had he really been away from his microphone for that long? The longer he talked, about nothing and then about the nothingness that seemed to be creeping it apathetic way into the heart of Desert Bluffs, the more he realized that Javier was right—if Javier was real. He hoped Javier was real. He blinked as his eyes felt hot and full. He still couldn’t find him.

He stepped out of the station with a slow and pep-less stride, but as he raised his head, he came to a halt as he saw Javier. He saw him, but he still could not feel him. Was he hallucinating? Was it really that bad already?

“I think we should talk, Kev,” Javier said.

Kevin blinked. “Are you…do you…why can’t I feel you?” he asked. He would talk with Javier whether he existed or not, but he hoped desperately that he’d be talking to someone real.

“Come sit down and I’ll explain that, too,” Javier said, realizing it would take too long to get Kevin somewhere else, where they could sit and do this properly. He had to hash this out now. Letting it simmer would only make it harder to solve, tangled up in his own imagined problems as it would become. They both hopped up on the trunk of Javier’s car. Kevin seemed to relax in a way that let him focus better when his leg brushed Javier. Sight was, after all, the least trustworthy of all the senses. Touch had a much lower error ratio.

Javier thought he’d start with the device. He wanted Kevin to be able to focus on the rest of it, the more important parts, and he also hated seeing him so worried and agitated, even if he was still mad at him. “This is why you can’t feel me,” he said, right before he turned it off. The look of joy on Kevin’s face as Javier’s existence came flooding back into him was almost _almost_ wonderful enough that Javier forgave him before making him understand. Kevin shifted to face him better and Javier could see how badly he wanted to grab him, crush them together, and he thought that because Kevin held back, there was hope for this conversation. “Strex was working on it before we got rid of them. A device to shield them from you. It’s the only one that exists,” Javier explained, wondering if Kevin would be angry.

“Why did you turn it on?” Kevin asked instead, voice small. His hands were clasped together and stuck between his knees as he sat so contained.

“You’re…a lot, Kev,” Javier said with a sigh. “You’re just…a lot. Sometimes that’s great. Other times, I feel like there’s only you, and none of the rest of the world has any real existence and you don’t even notice. Lately you’ve been too much. And I need to be able to feel like I still have a life that’s apart from you.”

Kevin’s eyebrows knitted together, and Javier could see that he didn’t really get it. “It’s not that I don’t want to be with you. Kev, when you don’t suck, you’re amazing. But I can’t _just be_ your boyfriend, or devotee or whatever we’re heading toward. I have to be me first, and right now I’m having a hard time figuring out who that actually is.”

“You’re Javier,” Kevin said, still looking confused.

“Or I’m just Carlos’ clone. I’ve only existed for a little over a year. What about me is…is anything? Is worth anything? That’s the problem now, Kev. You don’t listen, and my ideas are all I really have that isn’t you. When you don’t listen, when you dismiss my ideas as unimportant, when they’re important to me…you’re dismissing the whole of me.”

“I’m sorry,” Kevin whispered, looking shattered that he’d hurt Javier so badly without even realizing it.

Javier gave him a hard look and thought he could trust that apology as mostly true and mostly understood. “I’m really serious about fixing Desert Bluffs,” he continued. “You might be existing in several dimensions, but I’m just a human and I need a stable living environment.”

“Okay,” Kevin said, quietly.

“Is that an ‘okay, I understand and respect your point,’ or an ‘okay, I’m only saying this so you won’t be mad at me anymore’?” Javier asked, eyebrow raised.

“Okay, I understand,” Kevin said. “I used to…I used to run Desert Bluffs, I think, before Strex,” he continued. “I can sort of remember. It wasn’t that different…and maybe that’s...why they came. Maybe I’m not good at running a town all on my own. Everything’s so…empty. No one left, but everything’s empty. And I don’t know how to fix it,” he admitted, looking sadly at his hands.

“Will you let me try to fix it?” Javier asked. “Will you respect my decisions, even if they seem boring and silly to you?”

Kevin nodded. “Will you come home with me?” he asked in return.

Javier looked at his lovely, terrible boyfriend. “I don’t really have much of a choice,” he said. “That’s where all my stuff is.”

***

The next day, Javier spent a lot of time, undisturbed, per his own request, at his lab. When he got home, Kevin was sitting on the couch, fiddling with something suspicious in a mason jar. Kevin’s expression did an interesting dance between vaguely guilty, worried, and hopeful in a span of a few seconds. “Here,” he said, almost shyly, handing Javier the jar. The outside seemed to have runes painted in blood, covered in clear cello-tape to keep them from smudging. Inside sloshed a preservation solution (mostly formaldehyde, Javier guessed) and what looked like—

“Is that part of one of your tentacles?” Javier asked, surprised, touched, and mildly alarmed.

Kevin nodded. “I thought about what you said. About having to be yourself. And I thought…I thought I would, er, dedicate myself to you first. Because I’m yours first, then I’m me. And I wanted you to-to know that so maybe you wouldn’t have to feel like you weren’t yourself. And if you don’t want to, um, return the gesture, that’s okay,” Kevin said, looking down. “I don’t want you to feel…absorbed or-or subsumed. I want you to feel like you. Just…with me, also there,” he was fidgeting with his hands as he spoke, and Javier realized he’d never seen Kevin look so uncertain.

Javier carefully set the jar down on the table, and knelt in front of his boyfriend on the couch. “Kevin,” he said, looking at him with bemused affection, “did you really just cut off one of your tentacles to give to me?”

Kevin bit his lip. “Yes. But it will grow back. Eventually. Is that cheating?” he asked, eyes widening. “Do you want something more permanent?”

Javier shook his head, trying not to laugh as he completely forgave Kevin for his foray into spoiled childhood. “It’s…perfect. It really is. But Kev, are you bleeding all over our new couch right now?”

Kevin blinked. “Oops,” he said.


End file.
